I'll Follow the Sun
by Noblevyne21
Summary: Set just after the funeral scene in HBP. After Harry walks away from Ginny, she bumps into Tonks who happens to know first hand what it's like to deal with men and their idiocy.


Ginny watched as Harry walked away from her and towards her brother and Hermione, she bit her lip and stifled the urge to run after him and heartily shake him until he saw sense, but she knew it'd be like trying to beat sense into a stone, using only a wet tea towel and a half a bag of marbles: Impossible and illogical.

Harry was unfortunately stubborn and uncommonly stupid when it came to relationships. She didn't care about what danger there might be ahead of them, she was in danger everyday. This was a war, and he couldn't expect her to just sit down in her room and play gobstones while her brothers, parents and friends fought it. She wouldn't and she'd be damned if Harry treated her like a little girl again, not after this year.

She looked away from Harry, deciding she would actually have to chain herself to something to stop herself from going to him if she kept looking. How could they have accumulated so much distance in just a few minutes?

She turned sharply; fisting her hands into her robes and began walking without any forethought as to where she was going. She kept her eyes to the ground, mentally having an argument with Harry in his head about how he was a Great Dolt, she had just made a salient point on, she was in danger everyday, her family was one of the most notorious blood traitors in the world, if he didn't think that they weren't targets he was absolutely barmy when she bumped into someone, they both managed to get tangled in the other's robes and went tumbling rather quickly towards the rows of chairs.

"Ow. I am so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going and I…"

"It's no matter, I'm used to it. Here, I think your foot is my pocket, I wonder how that happened…"Tonks said, smiling kindly as she fought with the material to release them. "I'd do a Disentanglement Charm, but I've been a bit under the weather lately, we might both end up naked."

"Wouldn't want that, it's terrible form to not wear correct dress to a funeral," said a tired voice from above them. Lupin helped to separate the two of them and he gently helped the two of them up, doing a quick tidying charm on the chairs.

"Dumbledore would've had a laugh," Tonks said

"He would have," Lupin replied, a sad smile on his face. "Are you two all right?"

"I'm fine Remus, just another little stumble, I've survived more of them than you've had haircuts," she squeezed his hand reassuringly and Ginny was reminded again of what she had been trying to walk away from.

"I wasn't looking where I was going, I'm so sorry Tonks," Ginny said quickly, straightening her robes and plucking the grass from her hair. "Thank you, Professor" she added, and he smiled at her warmly, the lines on his face crinkling, for some reason, the expression comforted her.

Tonks waved her apology away casually, "Don't worry about it, Ginny. Are you okay?"

"I'm not hurt or anything, just a little embarrassed."

Tonks laughed, "You get used to the feeling."

"I hope I don't. No offence Tonks," Ginny said, her mood had started to pick up.

"How's Harry?" Lupin interjected, craning over to see him.

"Harry? He's…he's okay," she considered telling them about his plan to go off alone and find the Horcruxes, but it still felt like a betrayal confidence, no matter how stupid she thought it was. Because who needs highly trained and experienced wizards when you've got righteous anger?

Tonks was looking at her curiously and when she glanced over at Harry, she seemed to realise something was going on. "Remus, why don't you go ask Harry for yourself instead of interrogating Ginny?"

"I wasn't, I was…" Tonks gave him a very pointed look and touched his arm gently. "I'll be back in a moment," he sighed; a look of marvel fixed itself on his face as he strode off towards Harry, who was now alone.

"What line did he feed you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Has to save the world from unspeakable evil? Thinks it's too dangerous for you to be together?"

Ginny stared at her, gob smacked. "How did you know?"

"I heard those same excuses about a year ago. Men seem to all follow the same manual. All have to be big damn heroes about it."

Ginny laughed despite herself, "He thinks I'll be a target if we keep seeing one another. Doesn't want to see me hurt, and I can understand where he's coming from, but in case he hasn't noticed, there's not much he can really do about that unless the war were to end tomorrow," she paused, "and that's not going to happen unless Harry ends it," she added softly.

Tonks nodded sympathetically, "He can't expect that just because you two aren't together, that you won't get hurt. We're all in this together and you can't put a hold on life until it's over. Harry's parents stuck together."

Ginny gave her a look.

"Bad example, but so did your parents, they created a life and didn't let He-Who…Voldemort dictate their lives, none of them did and I'll bet none of them ever regretted their decision. We can't let Him even get that satisfaction."

"You're making an incredible amount of sense," Ginny told her.

"I've had these exact arguments with myself I and /I with Remus, I can rattle them off like the alphabet."

"I'm so happy for you," she grinned. "It's good to have the old Tonks back."

"Apparently I don't take well to rejection." She looked over at Lupin and Harry, who seemed to be in the midst of an awkward conversation, and smiled fondly. "But I'm persistent."

"Men are thickheads," Ginny sighed, following her line of sight. Harry glanced back at her fleetingly.

"Yeah, well…" Tonks shrugged. "He's convinced himself that he knows what's best for you, I doubt he even knows what's best for himself. Clearly doesn't know how to brush his hair properly," Tonks joked, but her laughter was hollow and brittle, carried away by the breeze. She ran a hand through her hair anxiously and it turned a violent shade of purple. "Don't let him do this to you… or to himself. Just because we're fighting a war, doesn't mean he has to be miserable."

Ginny wondered how much of this conversation she's actually been through with her own thickheaded boyfriend (it felt strange to think of Professor Lupin as anyone's boyfriend, let alone Tonks': bright, bubbly, clumsy Tonks and the wearied, mild mannered Professor who had lived through the deaths of all his closest friends…but there was something about Tonks that she recognised and it made her feel a little safer knowing that even adults went through this rubbish and half witted members of the opposite sex could be talked around into sanity.

"I feel so stupid, worrying about all this now, not when…" she trailed off.

"When everything's gone to hell?"

Ginny nodded solemnly.

"Life goes on, Ginny. Don't feel guilty because you want a little bit of normalcy."

"You know, you're a lot wiser than you look," Ginny grinned.

Tonks gave a thoughtful look and squeezed her face into a replica of Lupin's. "Look wise enough?"

"You look daft to me," Lupin said genially, joining them again.

Tonks relaxed her features and smiled at him.

"Remus, Nymphadora," McGonagall called, making her way slowly towards them. "I need to speak with the both of you."

Lupin and Tonks both nodded, and said their goodbyes to Ginny.

She looked out across the lake, observing how the sunlight danced over the water. The Minister for Magic seemed to be involved deep in conversation with the Chief of the Merpeople, Fred and George were sending Dumbledore a final salute using their finest firecrackers; everywhere people had branched off into little clusters, all attempting to comfort one another.

It was disquieting to think of a world without Dumbledore, it was as if everything had been thrown out of balance without his presence.

She looked over to her left, finding Harry again. The two of them seemed to be the only ones standing by themselves. He was staring up into the sky, squinting at the sunshine, he stood straighter than she remembered him ever doing, he usually hunched as if he could make himself small enough so that the world would forget about him, his hair stood up against the breeze in unmoving tufts.

She looked back at Remus and Tonks once again and noticed the way her hand rested so easily on his back and the quiet awe that radiated from him.

She took a couple of steps towards Harry and he turned to see her approaching. He gave her a grizzled smile and she caught something like desperation in his eyes that stopped her from advancing any further.

As he looked at her, the façade fell away revealing a confused and defeated looking teenaged boy. He silently pleaded with her to stop, don't make this harder. I Please /I .

She gave him a sad smile and didn't take another step.

Not today.


End file.
